World Series Final Game Attracts Over 50 Million Viewers Across the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
